architizer Architizer gets into the spirit of the LifeEdited project with a roundup of its top ten tiny apartments in Brazil, London, Paris, Seoul and I think just one in the USA, in New York’s West Village. What makes people everywhere else so much more comfortable in small spaces than North Americans seem to be?… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Let's use this space for any discussion related to tomorrow's midterms. If you're looking for a fantastic summery of some of the key races, check out George Will's column in the Washington Post. Otherwise, share your own thoughts. What races will you be watching? Who are your favorite dark horses? Are the polls overstating the GOP's position? House results? Senate? Debate and discuss!
Continue reading …Apple patent application offers promise of stronger, scratch-proof stainless steel
November 1, 2010 No Comment
As with all patent applications, it’s a bit early to get too excited about this one, but a recently published filing from Apple dubbed “Nitriding Stainless Steel for Consumer Electronic Products” is one of the more interesting we’ve seen from the company as of late, especially when you consider its recent acquisition of Liquidmetal’s intellectual property. Whereas Liquidmetal promises to let Apple create metal devices that are stronger and not limited to the usual structural or strength limitations found in conventional metals, this new patent application suggests that the company might also be working on a nitride coating for stainless steel that’s described as “both scratch and impact resistant.” What’s more, the application suggests that the coating would not affect the appearance of the underlying stainless steel, and not cause any RF interference either. As pointed out in the application itself, that means it could be used on laptops, portable media players and, yes, even cellphones — or it could simply be filed away with the countless other applications that haven’t seen the light of day. Here’s hoping for the former. Apple patent application offers promise of stronger, scratch-proof stainless steel originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Canalys: iPhone becomes most popular smartphone in the US, Android continues as most popular OS
November 1, 2010 No Comment
The Canalys numbers are out, and with Android coming off an 886 percent jump reported at the end of the second quarter we were expecting something big. So, here it is: Android is up 1,309 percent worldwide from this time last year, taking over 43.6 percent of the US smartphone market in the third quarter. In terms of mobile operating systems that makes it the dominant player in America, but with Apple capturing 26.2 percent it now jumps into the lead when it comes to hardware, beating out RIM’s 24.2 percent. That’s a swap from last quarter, where BlackBerries beat iPhones 32 to 21.7 percent, and worldwide things are looking the same: Apple at 17 percent compared to RIM’s 15. However around the globe it’s Nokia and the Symbian Foundation still dominating the stage as the leading smart phone OS vendor, owning 33 percent of the market compared to 38 last quarter, while Microsoft sits at a lowly 3 percent. With WP7 ready to rock the world, and Ballmer ready to release the advertising hounds , that’s a figure we’ll be keeping a close eye on for the next few quarters. Canalys: iPhone becomes most popular smartphone in the US, Android continues as most popular OS originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight blog (NY Times) has a lengthy piece in which he breaks down the races to watch as results begin to come in on Tuesday night, and what those race might mean to the big picture of how many seats could be changing hands.
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Dilma Rousseff will become Brazil’s first female president after winning Sunday’s runoff election. She said she was confident facing the challenge. (Nov. 1)
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Christopher Raeburn’s bunny making production line using up scrap fabrics at London Fashion Week SS11. Photo: Leonora Oppenheim As London Fashion Week’s Estethica continues to grow–and garner more attention from the mainstream industry–so, too, does their attempt to pinpoint a finer definition of green fashion : the sustainable platform is putting its applicants through an 18-question applicat… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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ViewSonic’s heavy foray into the tablet market has been no secret, but we’ve been a bit uncertain as to where on the map its products would land. Until now that is. According to ViewSonic’s American team, the company will be kicking off its US tablet invasion with the ViewPad 7 in November. Just as we’d heard , the 7-inch device packs an Snapdragon processor, Android 2.2, two cameras (a 3 megapixel cam on its rear and a VGA front facing one), 512MB of memory and 3G capabilities. Sure, it sounds a heck of a lot like the rest of the other Android tablets we’ve been seeing, but according to ViewSonic this one will most definitely have access to the Google Market and come preloaded with Google’s apps. Well, that’s a horse of a different color, though its $479 MSRP seems a bit high to us. What about the ViewSonic fans out there that have been eyeing the Android 1.6 / Win 7 dual-booting ViewPad 10 , you ask? Well, they’ll have to wait until the first quarter of 2011 to get their hands on that one, though at least that gives ‘em time to save up the $629 that it’s expected to retail for. We should note here, that the ViewPad 10 is identical in design to the Tega v2 we recently reviewed and similar in specs — it has a 1.66GHz Atom processor, 16GB SSD, 1GB of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium. We’re still unsure where the 10-inch, Android 2.2 G-Tablet that was recently spotted in a Sears circular fits in, but we’re definitely getting the hint that Viewsonic’s in it to win it with tablets. Gallery: Viewsonic Viewpad 7 and 10 Continue reading ViewSonic ViewPad 7 and 10 officially comin’ to America ViewSonic ViewPad 7 and 10 officially comin’ to America originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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As the US weighs its response to the al-Qaida-linked mail bomb plot, officials in Yemen have released a female engineering student, saying someone else had posed as her in signing shipping documents. (Nov. 1)
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